30 days of unbridled clarity: the build up

We were talking about that line in Size of a Cow by the Wonderstuff that goes “you know that I’ve been drunk a thousand times”, and, worryingly, that didn’t seem like such a hell of a lot. And then I was worried about it not seeming like such a hell of a lot, because surely a thousand’s quite a big number, isn’t it? A smaller number would be 780, which would be the total number of times I'd have been drunk had I got drunk once a week since the age of 18. But then you have to throw in wildcards such as university, where it’s compulsory to get drunk at least twice a day for a solid three years. And the early 20s, where no first job is complete without tottering around the vile chain bars of the more obvious parts of central London with your new colleagues, glugging white wine with gay abandon... and then doing the same thing the next night. And the next...

And now: a couple of beers with a curry; a shared bottle of wine with a nice meal out; a cheeky lunchtime pint; a few after work on a Wednesday; a big night out on a Friday or a Saturday... I sometimes think that if you laid all the receptacles I’ve ever drunk out of end-to-end, they’d go all the way around the Isle of White three times and I’d get into trouble with the local council.

So I thought I might stop. Or – rather – pause. Because, really, I should be able to. I think there’s been the odd week here and there when work’s been busy, I’ve been a bit poorly and suddenly seven days have floated by booze-free. But seldom more than that. Self-imposed attempts at a fortnight usually conclude with the blissful relief of crumbling two days early in a cackling frenzy of rule-breaking drink-mixing: “I’ll have a large glass of your roughest white wine with a Stella chaser and a bucket of sambucca to soak my feet in...” and then waking up with half a Cornish pasty stuck to my eyebrow thinking “Oh no. Who were those people?”

Really though, I am a proper grown-up. I am a woman before my prime. I have many lovely friends with whom I can spend quality time. I live in one of the most exciting cities in the world (admittedly less exciting when you’re stuck at London Bridge and they’ve closed the Jubilee Line plus all the relevant bits of the Northern line and someone with no sense of personal space is standing with the corner of their folded Metro newspaper tucked into your bottom crack. That is not my idea of excitement). I should be able to do a fortnight. I should be able to do three weeks. Hell, I should be able to do… a whole month. And, what’s more, it shouldn’t be that hard.

So this is why I am doing one month, or 30 days, or 720 hours, or 42,300 minutes (hmmm – that doesn’t sound like much?), or 2,592,000 seconds sans booze.

This friends, is, for me, a voyage of discovery. Here's what I'm hoping to achieve along my unusual journey....

1. Discovering that there are answers to the question: “What shall we do tonight?” other than: “Three pints of Amstel in the Marquis.” Going to the cinema with friends often feels like a crushing waste of time that could otherwise have been spent speaking to them. People so often scoff at solitary film-goers, but it is such a very solitary pursuit. Yet there are places you can talk to your friends other than the pub. And actually you can talk to them without drinking a lot of gin in the process. Going to pubs without drinking and going to other places where you wouldn’t drink anyway are both on the agenda this month.

2. Having the stress taken out of trips to the theatre with Dave because we don’t have to stampede to the bar at break-neck speed during the interval to secure that (for some reason) essential bottle-of-beer-in-a-plastic-glass interval drink. Maybe we can just have wasabi peas instead? Although they do make me sneeze.

3. Great riches – I could be really rich! If, hypothetically, your average London pint of metrosexual lager costs £4 and you have three of those three times a week, then sling in a £15 bottle of wine in a restaurant, that’s £51 a week, £204 month – £2488 a year! But I’m not doing a year: I dislike extremes. £204 would be handy though: that’s a cheap holiday to somewhere crap and hot.

4. The faithful liver also gets a cheap holiday. I'm far from being a wrinkled, red-eyed, bloated slob but, you know, the sample weekly drinks menu above equates to around 3,324 calories and an alarming (if you’re a lady and 14 is meant to be your max) ahem... 33 units. So maybe I’ll be more streamlined, brighter of eye, luxuriant of hair, glowing of skin, shiny of nose... just healthier… after 30 days off?

5. Discovering new things. Not like bungee jumping. I refuse to do anything that may cause me to lose control of my bowels: not even alcohol has ever done that. I welcome all suggestions

6. More time. You don't get masses of time before you cark it, if you think about it. There’s a sort of cosiness to a not-really-all-that-serious hangover... although only if this occurs at the weekend. You can huddle around in floppy clothes, indulging in salty snacks and and litres upon litres of tea. But a hangover does render a day somewhat unusable.

7. Less embarrassment. How many times have I lost control of my coffee, made a high-pitched choking noise and started panting wildly out of the train window of a morning (while the person next to me subtly shifts seats) because I’ve just had a terrible flashback and can’t believe I really said that.

8. Discovering that the answer to the question ‘do I have any self-control?’ is actually ‘yes’. I’ve long suspected there has been a great strata of self control, buried deep within me, just waiting to be excavated...

I’ll be writing about my progress from Wednesday 30 September until Thursday 29 October. Got any suggestions as to how I should spend my 30 days? Would you like to not go for a drink with me? Let me know...

The Unit Dodger